Thursday, 6 August 2009

The latest 1897 Paris fashions in Walsall

I have read of people identifying jewellery in old family photographs as being heirlooms which they themselves subsequently inherited, and in a previous article I posted a photograph of an unidentified family member wearing some jewellery. My own knowledge about jewellery is almost non-existent but the brooch being worn by the young woman in this photo is one from which even I can derive some information immediately. It is thus an appropriate entry for the footnoteMaven's 16th Smile for the Camera Carnival, Bling Ancestor.

An inscription on the reverse of the cabinet card portrait identifies the subject as, "Rachel Benfield married Fred Payne." This was Rachel Elizabeth Benfield (1880-1956) who married my great-grandfather's younger brother Fred Payne (1879-1946) at the Trinity Wesleyan Church in Corporation Street, Walsall on 22 May 1901. I have written previously about Fred here and here. The writing is in the hand of my aunt - she knew her great-aunt Rachel, and I have no cause to doubt her identification. Rachel, or Ray as she was known to our branch of the family, was born on 2 June 1880 in Walsall, one of eleven children (eight boys and three girls) of blacksmith Joseph Benfield (1855-1900) and Phoebe Kendrick (1854-1951).

Confirmation of my aunt's identification is provided, however, in the form of the brooch that she is wearing at her neck. An enlargement (click on image above) clearly shows that it is in the shape of the name "Rachel." There aren't any other close family members that I'm aware of with this name, so it has to be her. She also has a corsage with what appears to be a large white rose bud, and another dangly thing at the left which I can't quite make out.

I'm also interested in the style of dress that she is wearing. It seems very elaborate with a lot of detailed embroidery on the large collar and sleeves. I found an engraving dated 1897 of a gown with a very similar squarish wide collar in Stella Blum's very useful Victorian Fashions & Costumes. The caption to that illustration contains the following details of the construction of the garment:

The distinctive part of the gown is a collar which is cut out in front and back like a square neck dress ... point-lace, which is appliqued onto the velvet, and is bordered by a band of sable fur.

On census night (Sunday 31 March) 1901 Rachel was living with her family at 33 Camden Street, Walsall. She described herself as a dressmaker, and her younger sister Florence was a milliner. Kristina Harris, in the introduction to her 1999 book Authentic Victorian Fashions, writes the following about the "average, middle-class American woman" of the 1890s:

Most ... women brought fashion plates (from one of the many ... fashion magazines available ...) to her dressmaker; the dressmaker customized a chosen outfit according to her skills and her customer's desires ... If there was no dressmaker in town, or if a lady could not afford one, her next best source was a local seamstress - a housewife who took in sewing part time. For many women, one new dress a season was all that could be afforded; some women felt fortunate to be able to have one newdress a year. It was fabric, not labor, that was usually the most expensive factor in creating a new dress.

The fact that Rachel's 1901 census entry reads, "Dress Maker, Own account, At home," indicates that she was self-employed, and probably took in dressmaking jobs as described by Harris. Her sister Florence, on the other hand, was described as a worker and would therefore have been employed in a local milliner's shop. It seems very likely that Rachel made this dress which she is wearing in the Webb portrait. She would have copied or adapted the design from something similar to the engraving from Harper's Weekly shown above, according to her means. For example the lace, would have been very expensive to purchase, would have been replaced with some kind of embroidery or brocade. She looks to be aged between 18 and 21, and I estimate that the portrait was taken in 1900 or 1901, perhaps not long before her marriage, which took place three weeks after the census.

The photographer Frederick Thomas Webb was originally a japanner, artist and portrait painter from Wolverhampton, settling in Walsall with his wife Mary Ann née Jones in the late 1880s. By 1901 he had turned his hand to portrait photography, operating a studio from his house at 4 South Street. It is not clear how long he remained in business.

2 comments:

I am enjoying reading this blogpost . . . still have to follow all the links to read everything else . . . but for now, just an FYI . . . I believe your unidentified "dangly thing" is most likely a "chatelaine" . . . thanks for sharing!